Writing

Essays, reviews, and interviews on art, culture, technology, and the environment

Mal Devisa's Poignance and Will to Thrive, Impose

On the first track of Mal Devisa’s recently self-released full-length Kiid, nineteen-year-old Deja Carr slips into a duet of velvety bass and voice. “Fire” continues its aqueous melody with layered vocals as the question posed—“Does it kill you to know that we’re all dying?”—transforms from an external inquiry to an internal dialogue: “Does it kill you to know that we’re all dying? / Yeah it kills me to know.” Then the song swells and finally bursts in a climax of reverberation, only to come full circle and end in a brief moment reminiscent of the song’s halcyon opening. Fluctuating between hard and soft, intimate and collective, “Fire” acts as a kind of synecdoche for Kiid as a whole.